With all the prizes now unlocked in our Design for You competition all you need to do is enter your email to be eligible to win. There are still 5 designs to win plus the painted Eames rockers. And, as a little – or rather big – extra we’ve also included an Aeron chair. The way to win that chair is to get your friends and family to sign up. The one with the most signatures will win the chair. You can read all about it here. Good luck!
This week on the web…
1. Core77 Since we can’t be in London for Design Week we’ve got to rely on the savvy guys at Core77. Where to Start: Their photo coverage of the week so far is great.
2. Stamen As you can imagine this blog from design and technology group Stamen is beautifully put together. But it’s not just a pretty face. I can’t think of too many other sites where you’ll read about Justin Bieber and the reinvention of maps for Bing (Stamen were the design house behind that rather lovely reinterpretation). Where to Start: With the post on maps.
3. One in 8 Million This one falls into that Stop Work category. If you need a break check out this collection of stories about New Yorkers on The New York Times site. Where to start: I like the ”Jim Romana: The Tabloid Photographer.”
4. Elle Decor’s LookBook An excellent source for inspirational interior images. Where to Start: Their home office collection is packed with great spaces.
5. Design Boom An online magazine for the design and architecture crowd. Where to start: The post on tiny houses. I came across it in my search for unusual backyard workspaces.
Product: Bluelounge CableBox Mini
Rating: Recommend*
Price: $30
I’ve been intrigued with the Bluelounge Cable Box since its release last year, but never followed through on getting one because I felt like it was still a bit too bulky and bland formy office. I’m glad I held out because the CableBox Mini is a wire solution that’s closer to my aesthetics.
The kind folks at Bluelounge sent over a CableBox Mini for me to test out at home and, while it has some faults, it’s a great solution for camouflaging the anxiety provoking mess of cables and wires that can accumulate in just about any home office.
The CableBox Mini is about 3/4 the size as the original CableBox, which for simple home tasks is just about the right size. It comes with its own 8-inch surge protector that fits within the 9.3 x 4.6 x 5.2 inch CableBox. On either side of the box are small openings, one to accomodate the power strip’s plug and the other to feed your gadgets’ wires through. A cover pops on over the top, to hide the gaggle of wiring hidden within.
The power strip can juice four gizmos at once, which if you plan to use this with a computer set-up for example, should be just enough outlets, but you may find that you need more. Space is limited within the Mini, so don’t expect to plug in four power bricks. You’re pretty much limited to standard size plugs. Since the power strip only takes up about a 1/2 the space within the CableBox, you have plenty of room to wrap and tuck excess cables within the box. Bluelounge even ships the product with twist ties to help with that.
While the original CableBox was only available in black and white, the Mini is available in a slew of Skittles colors including, blue, green, yellow, orange, and pink. I chose yellow, to match with the pendant lighting we have in our office. I’m a fan of color so I was really into the idea of hiding my cables in a brightly colored box, but those of you who are looking for something that can easily be concealed within a room, there’s always Bluelounge’s white model.
Now for the drawbacks. My major complaint is that the surge protector itself has an incredibly thick cable that’s not very flexible, which makes it hard to manipulate in order to sit flush against the wall and the floor boards. Also, the plug itself is crazy big and sticks out quite a bit when inserted in an outlet, forcing the thick power cable to jut out of the wall. When compared with my Belkin power strip’s plug, you can see why I might be frustrated.
Pros: Colorful, yet simple cable solution for those who need to keep things tidy while their gadgets are plugged in.
Cons: Keeping wires undercover becomes a bit moot when you have a thick, unforgiving power cable to manhandle.
Our Ratings:
Strong Recommend
Recommend*
Weak Recommend
Don’t Recommend
Apartment Therapy Media makes every effort to test and review products fairly and transparently. The views expressed in this review are the personal views of the reviewer and this particular product review was not sponsored or paid for in any way by the manufacturer or an agent working on their behalf. However, the manufacturer did give us the product for testing and review purposes.
By Sonia Zjawinski
This story appears in partnership with Unplggd, a site for people who embrace technology and design in their home.
1. Fish Bowl Bookends, $59.99 They’d make us smile even more if they were holding together books like Moby Dick, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, and One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish. Get it: Target.com
2. 1984 FISHBOWL, $430 AU George Orwell’s novel 1984 (another book!) inspired designer Danny Cheung’s futuristic creation, which uses domed portholes to give goldfish a little more privacy. Get it: workshopped.com.au
3. The Fish Pod, $35 Hang this eye-catching lucite fish bowl (or three) on your wall for a fun, floating effect within your workspace. Get it: plushpod.com
4. Umbra’s Fish Hotel, $25 Stack these award-winning bowls by Carlton University student Teddy Luong for a tall, hotel-like appearance. Get it: Unica Home
5. XS or XL FishBowls, This playful, thought-provoking bowl from a 15-piece project by industrial designer Roger Arquer examines the relationship between big and small fish living together. (But mostly, we just think it’s clever-cute.) Get it: rogerarquer.com
Images linked to their sources within the numbered text
Susan Huls, the editor of our sister blog, Discover reported on Grand Rapids’ ArtPrize. Sounds like a great event.
“Herman Miller’s former President and CEO Max DePree once advised us all to “make room for people who have unusual and creative gifts.” Enter ArtPrize—the international art show and competition based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Grand Rapids is a burgeoning city that is making its mark among design and innovation circles. It also happens to be minutes away from our Zeeland headquarters.
ArtPrize provides us a fantastic opportunity to support creativity within our local community. In fact, we’ll be sponsoring a central resource center for ArtPrize called The Hub, which is located downtown in the Old Federal Building. From September 22 to October 10, The Hub will host a visitor center, voter registration area, artist lounge, and volunteer offices—all furnished with our products.
ArtPrize and its prize money—totaling $449,000—have proven to attract a tremendous amount of talent and votes, but they also attract a community excited about art and its city. It’s a great event and we’re thrilled to be a part of it.
A good idea is a good idea…anywhere in the world. Vienna-based Tulga Beyerle, Thomas Geisler and Lilli Hollein of Neigungsgruppe Design who founded Vienna Design Week just released their office playlist. Our playlist series has been one of the most popular things we’ve done at Lifework – seems you all listen to a lot of music! You can check out Neigungsgruppe Design’s list here. I like it. What do you think? Makes me want to go to Vienna and check out their design week.
For the playlist head over to bene.com…it’s worth it for the nice design work they’ve done on the site.
Amy Feezor returns next week with a top secret playlist (so secret I don’t even know what it is…)
All the prizes have been unlocked in our Design for You competition. Which means those Eames rockers will be won by a lucky five. You just have to enter your email to be eligible for the draw. Today we’re talking to artist and illustrator Josh Cochran about his finely detailed designs and what it was like flying out to Los Angeles to paint a chair.
How long have you worked in your current studio? And where is it? I have worked at my studio for almost 3 years. It’s an old pencil factory buildling in Brooklyn that has been divided up into smaller studios. I work as an illustrator for a pretty wide range of clients in advertising, editorial and television.
Describe your style? How would you define your aesthetic? My work is linnear, graphic and obsessive. My drawings are influenced by comics, vintage children’s books, woodblock prints and contemporary graphic design. I work primarily with a pencil on paper, sometimes I paint, sometimes I silkscreen but overall, I try to keep my process pretty simple.
As an artist how do you keep your space organized? I’m thinking here of the physical space but also your computer. Are there any particular programs you find really useful? My space is not huge so I have to be good about how I organize things. I’ve had a couple of desks built with custom shelving around it which has helped with storage. It also helps me have different work stations for when I work on digital things versus analog messy work. At times the computer can be a real distraction so having it on a different surface from my drawings helps a lot. I have a dry rack for prints and flat files to store larger work. On the computer I love using programs like iCal and Excell for managing clients and deadlines and Dropbox for file organization.
What would you change about your workspace if you could? I would probably add another table and more shelving. Right now I have these book shelves built into my drawing desk and it would be nice to have more room for my growing piles of books.
What do you most love about your space? I love the large custom tables I helped build. They were originally meant to be used for silkscreen but I just spread everything out on it.
Tell me about the experience of painting the Eames chair? How much prep did you have to do? What inspired the final design? Painting the Eames chair was an incredible experience! I didn’t have a whole lot of time to paint something super intricate so I decided to limit my colors to black and a bright magenta. I prepped a bit for the chair here in my studio by working out sketches of each of the little vignettes. The final design was really inspired by the shape of the chair, I wanted it to be organic to mirror the form. We were also by the theme we were given “Making the world a better place” which inspired me to come up with something fun.
What inspires you? Living here in Brooklyn, surrounded by a ton of talented and ambitious people really inspires me on a daily basis.
Designer Daily just ran 30 “enviously cool” home office set ups. Not sure if they are all cool but this one certainly is. It’s a room within a room by Berlin-based Davidson Rafailidis. The idea was to create a space that was insulated so the whole room or house didn’t need to be heated.
“We’re laid back (with our mind on our wire management and wires on our mind). Luckily for us, even when we’ve found ourselves having gone completely wireless, there still manages to be a product out there to help organize our goods even better.
Courtesy of Combine, a Vancouver-based design studio, this sexy looking black walnut keyboard tray comes in a variety of flavors to allow partial combos for those who haven’t literally bought every product Apple has released this current year.
The wood itself is made from sustainable trees harvested in North America and is joined together using water-based glue with a food safe oil finish to make it nice and polished. Yeah, we know our OCD-ness comes out periodically, but the improved angle for typing is a definite plus in our book. Even if it means adding a giant cutting board on our desks.
You can pick up the Combine Walnut Keyboard Tray for $69 (for the keyboard-only model), $74 (for the keyboard + trackpad combo), and $79 (for the keyboard, trackpad + remote combo).
This story appears in partnership with Unplggd, a site for people who embrace technology and design in their home.
This week’s Design for You prize is a signed copy of Steve Frykholm’s Lemonade poster (below). Here Frykholm and Clark Malcolm, who has been a writer and editor at Herman Miller for more than 20 years, chat about the company picnic that began the poster series, Lilliputians, the Peace Corp and how you decide to stop printing such iconic posters.
But first a bit of background: Frykholm, who is Herman Miller’s Creative Director, VP and recipient of the 2010 AIGA Medal, has been in charge of forming Herman Miller’s image and graphic identity over the past 40 years. One of the many tasks he took on was to design a poster every year for the company’s annual picnic. He produced 20 posters between 1970 to 1989.
Over the years the posters have won critical acclaim and been included in exhibitions and collections all over the world including the New York Museum of Modern Art, Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, Danish Museum of Decorative Art, and the Library of Congress. The posters often surface on Ebay fetching anywhere from a $150 to $700. While a full set of posters went for $7000 at a New York auction in 2009.
Clark Malcolm: When you started working at the company the picnics were a real big event right?
Steve Frykholm: They were a real event and that’s all caps. It was a big deal to the employees and their families. They hired me in February of 1970 and Joe Schwartz came in and said to me, ‘Now you are our first internal graphic designer could you design a poster for the picnic. Would you?’ And I said sure, it sounds like fun. He said, ‘Well the name of the picnic this year is sweet corn festival.’
CM: Why did they call it that?
SF: It was one of the few that had a name. But, you know, who was I to challenge it. I was the new kid on the block and I knew a little bit about screen-printing. They really just needed them to put up around the buildings. There was another designer working with me at the time, his name was Phil Mitchell. I said, ‘Why don’t we just do an ear of corn? I will stick it in my mouth and you draw it.’ So we did. And I cut the stencils and we had the screens made and printed them after hours down in the basement because the fumes were pretty intense coming from the ink.
Read on for the rest of the interview.